Oh and By the way... MAKE YOUR OWN LAUNDRY DETERGENT

I have been meaning to post this for FOREVER, but it keep slipping my mind. Mostly because it comes to mind when I am away from the computer. Usually it happens while doing laundry. Homemade laundry detergent- a how-to! I've been making my own for, I don't know, about a year, year and a half now, using 3 main ingredients, plus fragrance. It's easy, it saves (tons) of money, it's more environmentally friendly than store bought detergents, and it's fun, because I can scent my laundry however the heck I want to and I get to control the strength.

Here's what you need:

-Arm & Hammer Washing Soda. It comes in a box that looks like a baking soda box but instead of being an orangey yellow it's a lemony yellow, and it's BIG. Big like a cereal box big. It's usually found in the laundry section at your local store, right next to this next ingredient...

-Borax. 20 Mule Team is the brand I buy, and it's also the only one I've ever seen, but I suppose that if you have another brand available to you, you could use that as well. Just make sure it's 100% Sodium Borate.

-Soap. Any old soap will do. You can use fancy handmade soaps, or you can buy the cheap stuff from the dollar store. I buy "Pure & Natural" made by the Dial Corp- it's hardly pure or natural, but it's (mostly) fragrance free, and it's hypoallergenic. It's also cheap- I hear they sell it at the dollar stores, in a 3 pack, for- you guessed it- a dollar! Heh, I get mine at the grocery store and pay less than $2 for my 3 packs though, so it's pretty cheap no matter where you buy it. You can get whichever soap suits your fancy- try some Fels-Naptha or that other one whose name I forget at the moment for an extra boost of clean, go to that fancy boutique up the street and buy some fancy scented soaps for your laundry because you need to pamper yourself, or buy Ivory because it's crazy cheap. My Pure & Natural turns into a fine powder when I rub it on the grater, and that's why I like it, but more on that later. I've also used Ivory and the laundry soap that's like Fels-Naptha but isn't... I really wish I could remember the name of that one.

-Fragrance (optional). Use something approved for skin contact; soap fragrances, for instance, are ideal, as are essential oils. You can get fragrance oils for soap at your local craft shop, or there are about a million places you can order them from online. Steer clear of candle fragrances unless you know for a fact that they are safe for use on skin- this detergent, like any commercially available one, may leave some of itself behind on your clothing, and you'll want to make sure that the scents you put in it aren't going to cause skin irritation.

Now, you're also going to need:
-A container to put the finished detergent in, and maybe a few extras to put extra soap in if you decide to plan ahead like I do. I store my unused shredded soap in large ziploc band plastic tubs- the really large "family size" ones so I can whip up a batch of laundry detergent in 30 seconds or less.
-Some way to grate your soap. I use an old-fashioned 4-sided cheese grater, and a lot of elbow grease. I tried this little cheese shredder thing with a spinny handle, but it didn't work very well for me. I hear some people use food processors, but if you do that, do you really want to use that thing for FOOD ever again? I sure wouldn't, and I don't see a need to own 2 food processors, so every 6 months or so, I shred up 3 bars of soap. By hand, using a cheese grater. It's a pretty good workout, I guess, and I can get it done in less than 45 minutes.

First off, you need to get your 3 main ingredients into powder form. The borax and the washing soda come this way, but your soap most likely does not. So, grab your chosen method of shredding, and get to it! I shred 3 bars of soap in a sitting, one at a time, but only so that I don't have to do it more than 3 times a year :) A little trick I've learned: dry soap shreds MUCH finer than fresh soap. So when I go and buy bars of soap for this purpose, I open them as soon as I get them home, and then stash them away. I probably won't use them for a few months, so they have plenty of time to dry out and get nice and hard. Then, when the time comes, I can take my dried out soap and scrape them on the finest side of the grater, and end up with powdered soap instead of shredded soap. This provides for a superior clean, as the soap will now dissolve readily in water, whereas large shreds might not fully dissolve in the wash, and could even end up leaving little soapy bits on your laundry! If your soap does come out shredded rather than powdered, don't worry- you can make sure it will dissolve in the wash by starting your load off with hot water (before adding your laundry), adding your detergent, then switching to warm water once your little soap bits have dissolved in the wash water.

Once your soap is shredded/powdered, all you need to do is take your 3 dry ingredients, measure out equal amounts of each one, and mix together. I use a cup of each, and put them all in a large glass jar, screw the lid on, and give it a good shake. You could use 1/4 cup of each if you were using a particularly small container, or 3 cups of each if you were making a really large tub of detergent. I've found the 1-1-1 ratio to be quite effective, though, so it's what I use.

If you want a scented detergent, add a few or a lot of drops of your chosen fragrance to your mixed detergent, and mix again. Keep in mind the base scent of your detergent, though- if you used a scented soap, you may not need to scent it, and you'll certainly want to keep the base fragrance in mind when adding scent to your detergent. This is why I use the Pure & Natural soap- it's got the tiniest bit of fragrance to it, and that disappears after about 2 drops of whatever fragrance I add. To my 1-1-1 cup detergent, I usually add about 3mL of fragrance, adding a few drops, mixing, adding a few more drops, mixing, etc, until it's all in the detergent. That way I don't get big clumps ;)

That's it- homemade laundry detergent. Easy as pie.

Use 1 Tbsp per load of laundry, or 2 for really dirty loads (I'm not sure on the exact amount one would use in one of those fancy high efficiency washers, but I hear it's usually half what you would use in a regular washing machine). Put it in your wash water as the drum is filling and let your laundry soak for 15 minutes before letting the machine run its cycle for a great presoak, or just toss it in and go. We have hard water, so I always add 1/4 cup or so of baking soda to every load so that the detergent can do its job on my clothes instead of wasting it on softening the water, but if you have decent water at your place you won't need to do that. This stuff works just as well, if not better than, the stuff we used to buy from the store, and it's so much more cost effective.

Just remember not to use the container you put your detergent in for anything else, ever again. Keep that in mind when selecting your container and you'll be all set.

Oh and if you want a cheap, natural fabric softener that leaves no residues or scents on your clothes, use white vinegar. Pour it into one of those "Downy" balls, up to the line and everything, and throw it in with the wash. The rinse cycle will rinse away the smell, so don't worry about that; the vinegar will soften your fabrics AND help to rinse out the rest of the detergent. The only thing it doesn't do that well is stop static, but vinegar actually softens clothes as well as any sheet fabric softener out there.

If anyone has any questions or additions to this, I'd love to read your comments! Have fun making your own laundry detergent!

Today I made soap

But not just ANY old soap, no... this is "real" soap, made with oils and lye and lots and lots of messes and mixing :) I failed to take any pics of the process, but I'll be sure to update this listing with pics of the results when I have them... as it's my first batch of cold process ever, there's no guarantee how it will end up- usable? garbage? the best soap ever made?

...Only time and saponification will tell, but so far everything seems to be going as it should. I mean, I HAVE spent the last 8 months or so reading and reading and reading about this. I'd hope that I'd be able to at least end up with usable, if not salable, soap on my first go round. It's a black bar, with swirls of red and gold throughout, or at least that's how it looked when I poured it into the mold.

Came up with a special new fragrance for it too- and as soon as supplies come in I'll be offering it in a solid scent in the Etsy shop, so you all can enjoy it before the soap is ready (assuming, of course, that the soap comes out awesome enough to sell, which it *may* not). A rich blend of scents: cracked coconuts and fresh limes dance amongst swirls of dark musky woods, hint of vanilla, and a sprinkle of powder. All I could think about when making this was Morocco. Which brought me to Tangier, which made me think Burroughs, then Kerouac, then- Desolation Angel was born.

Unfortunately I used up ALL of my coconut scent in the blend for the soap, and I was able to make just enough of it for the soap, but no more. I actually kinda lucked out that way, I guess- it could have ended up that I didn't have enough of this new fragrance to use in my soap, and then what would I have done? :) I was able to get a couple of drops out of the mixing container, and I made myself a sample size solid scent with this divine mixture, but no more shall be had until I get my scents back in stock. Which is a shame, because this tiny jar I have is very dilute and I fear it won't last me the 8+ days it's going to take for my stuff to get here. And the soap won't be ready for use for AT LEAST a month!! I don't know what I'll do in the meantime... this scent is amazing, and I don't usually say that about things that I make.

Anyway, time to go get some orders ready for shipping tomorrow- I'll be back to update this with pics when I can!!

Edit: Here's pics!! I couldn't wait, I had to cut into it a little early, and I took pics as I went. Man, I don't know how I'm going to deal with having to wait 4-6 weeks to use this stuff :( I'm no expert, but it looks pretty alright to me, and the scent survived the saponification process wonderfully... I could have poured it a bit sooner, I guess, to eliminate some of the bubbles I trapped, and I think next time I'll use activated charcoal for black rather than oxides, but overall I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Oh and I have to do more swirling on the next round, for sure. I thought I had overdone it- guess I was wrong!



Lookin' good, Desolation Angel, lookin' good.



Stacks and stacks! LOL Soaphenge.

I think...

...it's time to start a giveaway.

In time for Xmas?

What will it be?

Hmmm...

How shall I proceed?

Stay tuned!

Etsy <3's me!

And I heart Etsy.

Really.

This has been an awesome week for my shop, being featured in both the Etsy Finds blog post (again) AND on the Front Page last night! Checking into Craftcult, this is what it looks like when you've actually got news ion the "Featured" tab:


It was pretty cool to see that.

I got a screenshot of the FP, too- I pretty much heart every item that was up there with me; anatomy is so freaking rad. LOL I also wound up buying from one of the sellers, CraftieRobot, so I guess that being on Etsy's front page IS good for business! Here's the entire collection, minus one- Wengergirl's mermaid skeleton teeshirt sold FAST. As well it should have; it was really cool.



Now, as far as results go, I wound up with 2 large sales last night right around the time I was on the FP. One of them, I'm not sure was a result of being on the front page, but the other one, I'm pretty sure, came from there. I also had a potential customer contact me regarding another good-sized order, and the item itself wound up with 12 new hearts and 200 or so new views. Not bad for an hour's worth of exposure just before midnight EST, huh?

So, the moral of the story is, do whatever it takes to get your stuff on Etsy's front page so you can get some sales. LOL. No but seriously, it really is good for business, so keep working on those photos and products, and keep up a presence on the site (think: forums, chat, etc) so that more people with the funky little "Admin" tag on their avvies will see you and your wonderful products and think of you when selecting items upon which to bestow what basically is Etsy's highest honor. :)

Sassmowth Designs CONTEST!!!

Check it out- a contest for a free photo print from the one and only Sassmouwth Desgins!!

Here's a link to her blog, for all the nitty-gritty details:

And be sure to check out her Etsy page, there's lots of pretty pics there! This one is my favorite (and coincidentally, the one I'm trying to win :D)

OMIGOSH I'm in Etsy Finds!

I am super duper excited to have had my glow in the dark brainssssssss soaps featured in today's Etsy Finds, so I'm just posting about it all over the internet. Please bear with me, I promise the excitement will wear off, eventually ;) But with 5 bars sold already, and dozens upon dozens of new hearts, I'm just so totally stoked about this and am already planning the future of my soap empire...

Here's a link if you wanna go check it out- there's a TON of awesome Halloween stuff in there: Link There's just so much sick talent on Etsy, and i'm glad to be a part of it :D

Oh, p.s. here's a pic of my item, it's my glow in the dark Brainsssssss soap!!

Creepy Queen Magazine- MightySquirm Tshirt giveaway

Ok, so, I rarely get excited about giveaways, usually because I don't care for the items being given away, or because the amount of effort required to win just isn't worth the prize being handed out. This one is different. Creey Queen Magazine is giving away 2 t-shirts from The Mighty Squirm- check them out here.

Their stuff is AMAZING- I love the artwork, and the shirts appear to be quality shirts. I can't say for sure yet, as I haven't won my shirt, so wish me luck with this and make sure you get yourself an entry or two, here.

The prizes are these two shirts, in size Medium:






I'm really hoping to win the second one, but I gotta say, I wouldn't be unhappy if I won the first one, either- they're both just superb work. Head on over to Creepy Queen Magazine (and register if you haven't already), and enter yourself to win one of these two awesome t-shirts!!

Crisis: Resolved

Well, all's well that ends well. The seller who copied my item and description is no longer selling it. I'm not sure whose decision it was to remove the item, the seller's or Etsy's, but for now, it is gone.

We'll just have to keep an eye out on other handmade sites like Artfire, etc, to see if she decides to be all thefty over there ;)

Thanks again to all of you who helped me to deal with this in a responsible and adult manner. Left to my own devices, I'd probably have done some really bad stuff and gotten myself kicked off of Etsy, lol. You guys are the BEST :)

CopyCattery Updates

Hi all, thanks to you all for your support in this; I hope to see this resolved quickly. Etsy admin is AMAZING- they got back to me this morning! I was pleasantly surprised by that, after being told it might be a week or so before I heard from them. I am forwarding to them all relevant information regarding these items, and they should be taking care of this soon. For anyone who's interested, Etsy's copyright policy can be found here: http://www.etsy.com/copyright_policy.php; apparently all I have to do is send them some info regarding these items and they'll make this right. Etsy doesn't wanna be associated with design theft anymore than most of the rest of us do- it's icky! I'm confident that this will be resolved shortly, and that this other seller will realize that not only is it just not cool to copy other people's work, it's not worth the hassle. Especially not for 6 bucks!! Sheesh.

Speaking of the other seller, I haven't received a response to my convo, but I did see that they slightly altered the wording to their listing. I can only assume that that is their response to my note. They only changed it slightly though, I mean, the first few words are still the same! Uncreative people are so predictably boring...

Anyhow, I'll let you all know what happens with this as things develop.

My first copycatter!

If they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then why do I feel so damn INSULTED right now? I popped into chat this evening, to say hi and see what was happening, when I stumbled across a very FAMILIAR item... it was one of mine, sort of. The ring base was a cheaper, lesser-quality one than what I used, but the overall idea was mine. Then, I read the description after a friend pointed it out to me- it was also mine, WORD FOR FREAKING WORD. I was shocked. So, I did what any reasonable Etsy seller would do, I posted her item in chat. She replied with a "hey thanks for posting my item I'm glad you liked it!" type post, to which I responded by posting my item in chat.

She left, lol.

Here's a link to my item, and a screenshot of the offending item; I refuse to link to it b/c I don't want to give her shop full of lies any undeserved traffic.

My item: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27067403
She even had the balls to HEART the freaking thing before she stole it!

The incriminating screenshot (all identifying info has been removed):

I have forwarded UNALTERED screenshots of both items to Esty admin, and hope to see this situation resolved soon. Wish me luck!